I'm making a character plus upgrading a SR4 Character Generator Sheet that I found online and I came across the following:

SR4 pg 240
There is a table of how much it costs to raise the Resonance and Signal of a Commlink. This is all fine but it got me thinking. I took the worst Commlink (Meta Link (1/2)) and gave it the upgrades to match the best Commlink (Fairlight Caliban (4/5)) so thats +3 Resonance and +3 Signal. The total cost of the Meta Link (upgraded) is only (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 1500 vs the (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 8000 for a stock Fairlight Caliban. Am I missing something? Can someone set me straight here or is this just a loophole in the rules?

Fairlight is making a killing on their brand name and their commlink casing (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Yeah, just like you can buy super expensive brand computer or assemble one yourself that will be better and cheaper.

Even still a (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 7000 difference is A LOT. Even Alienware isn't gouging their customers THAT much. The Firewall and Signal rules are not that out of line.

7k is indeed a lot, but I recall seeing a few computers in the upper thousands for those with more money than sense. most were 24k gold plated, however.

I favour adapting Trollman's rules on buying Commlinks, they're pretty reasonable in my opinion.

You'll have to scroll a way down to get to the Hacking Gear section.

I would say in some respects Alienware could fit that motif just on levels of performance vs. cost. It is basically a prestige machine when you get into the higher end of there catalog. Those bells and whistles and up fast.

There is no "+3" when upgrading commlinks. You pay for the new rating, period. So upgrading a metalink to 4/5 would cost 3,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . That's still nearly 5,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) in savings over the Fairlight, though. High-end stock commlinks seem like something only NPCs would use.

Commlinks are one of those archetype-identifying pieces of gear. A hacker will have a tricked out Meta Link running an OS he wrote himself. A mage will have a Fairlight Caliban running Novatech Navi. A street sam with spare karma will have an upgraded Novatech Airware with a custom OS courtesy of his favorite matrix contact (though he's still got his old Iris Orb on a chip in his apartment, just in case).

I think I may have found a solution that is fair and would encourage people to buy the better comlinks. If you have to pay for each level above your current then the price becomes more fair.

Example:

Meta Link (1/2) you want to be like a Fairlight Caliban (4/5)
It would cost 750+1250+2000+150+500+1000 = 5,650 for the upgrades plus 100 for the original Meta Link for a total of 5,750 for the Upgraded Meta Link (only a savings of 2,250)

As noted above – in a cross post (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) – I am pretty sure that hardware upgrade costs are supposed to be cumulative. I.E. pay for going from 1 to 2, then pay for going from 2 to 3 etc.

Based on that you get the following total cost for a 4/5 comlink:

• 5,960 ¥   Complete Custom
• 5,750 ¥   Meta Link
• 5,800 ¥   CMT Clip
• 5,450 ¥   Sony Emperor
• 5,250 ¥   Renraku Sensei
• 4,750 ¥   Novatech Airware
• 5,500 ¥   Erika Elite
• 4,500 ¥   Hermes Ikon
• 6,000 ¥   Transys Avalon
• 8,000 ¥   Fairlight Caliban

Any of the above further upgraded to 6/6 would be another 15,000 ¥

Naturally, the table is intended for incremental upgrades - i.e. upgrading from Rating 1 to Rating 3 requires you to buy Rating 2 and then Rating 3. So the real cost of upgrading a Response 1/Signal 1 commlink to a Response 5/Signal 5 commlink is 9,960 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .

Unless the Runner is dumb then he will get the latest and the greatest





(IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif) This is where I have to disagree with you AH, as long as the motherboard will accept it, then you can jump from a piece of crap machine to an uber machine. Since Shadowrun rules don't delineate changing out the "motherboard" of a commlink then you can't say that you have to upgrade step by step.

Unfortunately that is how a lot of older SR players think as the Fairlight Excalibur was cheaper then a custom Deck with the same states. From a game point of view this is how it should be. It leaves the door open for munchkin activity.



You would think from a retailer point of view that they would pass the costs of each incremental step to the customer. So doing incremental upgrades makes sence (even if your not doing an incremental upgrade to the comlink).

I think many of us assumed that it wasn't incremental on account of it referring to a singular "Response Chip" and the parallel with modern processing hardware implied that you don't upgrade the Rating, it just gets replaced. Thanks for clarification. Is this actually spelt out in the rules somewhere? I certainly never came across something that implied it.

Incidentally, my GM houseruled that you can only upgrade to twice the base stats of your 'link under the replacement assumption. It somewhat balanced things out.

That is a good house rule. It means the Fairlight Caliban is still a good buy (for future upgrade potential).

sadly this is not something thats spelled out clearly, and there is nothing else in the book (or any other book) that behaves that way, that i can recall right now...

Which is why I call bovine manure on the "you have to do incremental upgrades" process.

Besides, is it REALLY game breaking to allow commlinks to be upgraded in one step. Magic/Resonance oh, HELL yeah, commlinks... not really. As you pointed out Hobgoblin, nothing else in the game uses this rule.

Also it is balanced out by the fact that if this custom commlink gets damaged then replacing it with another custom job is going to be a stone bitch.

A Response 5, Signal 5 commlink has two availability 12 components. That's going to be pretty hard to replace on a short notice. If you want rating 6 on either... Availability 16! Pretty hard to just go to the local Radio Hut and pick one up if you need it in a day.

That is true but it would be nice if the upgrades were more inline with other areas on a comlink. Upgrading the firewall or system isn't so badly broken.

You know, you don't have to incrementally upgrade your Firewall or System, so why should there be a separate rule for components?

It's not game breaking to allow good commlinks go for fairly cheep, having a commlink with 6's in everything doesn't make you some kind of god or anything. For your average non-hacker runner, signal and firewall are really all that's neccesary to be a high rating, and response/system is mostly just used for getting a good analyze and thus better security. Heck, with the upgrades being non-incremental my mage spend more on their link then any of their guns or armor.

As for the cost of pre-built machines, it's really just the megacorp influence. The high end machines are more status then power. Anyone who needs that kind of power should be able to purchase the parts and assemble the machine themselves, just like in real life, so the only reason to buy a fairlight is to say you have one.

I may just be an idiot, but I read the rules as saying that, if you wanted to get a lvl 5 in, say, signal, you had to buy a level 5 signal. So it didn't matter if you wanted to upgrade from a lvl 2 signal or a lvl 4 signal, you had to replace the whole unit (in this case, the tranciever array, which totals $1000.)

You don't actually upgrade your commlinks stats, you replace them. You buy a new rating 5 antenna, and put it where the old rating 2 antenna was. In other words, whether you are starting with a meta clip or a fairlight, it costs the same to get 6's under the hood.

The wording is not great, but it is meant to be for incremental upgrades. Hence cumulative.

The two tables below essentially mean the same thing.

HARDWARE UPGRADE COSTS
HARDWARE REPLACEMENT COSTS

That makes the base Comlinks useless then. As a hacker you should just buy the best rating parts right off the bat and not worry about the comlink or OS they use. I don't like that at all.